Volvo, POC and Ericsson working on super-safe smart bike helmet

Volvo, in collaboration with POC Sports and Ericsson, is bringing about a new advance in connected wearables which could help save the lives of cyclists.

The idea is that a POC helmet will be connected via Bluetooth to a smartphone app, and this will broadcast the cyclist’s whereabouts on the road – with nearby Volvo cars able to pick up that signal using a system built into the vehicle.

In other words, if you’re heading up the road in your Volvo and there’s a blind junction ahead, with a cyclist approaching that you can’t see, you’ll be warned of their presence – and can then be extra vigilant. The cyclist will also be warned of the proximity of a car (or at least that’s the way it looks on the video, which you can see above).

Cars hitting bikes they don’t see has always been an issue (and the subject of a number of road safety campaigns), and this just points to another way that wearables can make the world a safer place in the future.

Klas Bendrik, VP and group CIO at Volvo Cars, told Wareable: “The partnership between Volvo Cars, POC and Ericsson is an important milestone in investigating the next steps towards Volvo Cars’ vision to build cars that will not crash …. by exploring cloud-based safety systems, we are getting ever closer to eliminating the remaining blind spots between cars and cyclists and by that avoid collisions.”

Volvo and company will showing this tech off at CES, which kicks off early next month (on 6 January).